During dental treatment, it is frequently desirable or necessary to isolate and shield the tooth or teeth being treated from the neighboring teeth or the oral cavity in general, for instance in order to prevent saliva from contacting the treated tooth or, inversely, to prevent therapeutic fluids and other agents from contacting the area around the treated tooth. This isolating function is realized by means of a rubber barrier sheet designated as a rubber dam and featuring openings that facilitate extending it over the tooth to be treated or other teeth as well. The sheet isolates and shields the teeth tightly, so as to prevent the passage of liquids.
The rubber sheet surrounding the tooth or teeth in this way is fastened to a retaining device that holds it stretched over the oral opening, allowing access only to the tooth or teeth being treated or other teeth as well, so as to realize its function as described.
The devices now familiar for this purpose are either closed full frames or open (U-shaped) frames made of metal or plastic, over which the rubber sheet is laid, which frames feature pointed projections on which the rubber sheet is suspended and thus retained.
This method of retention of the rubber dam, i.e. of anchoring it to the holder, represents a significant problem in rubber dam applications as per the current state of the art. If the rubber dam comes loose from the holder during dental treatment, its protective shielding effect may be lost in the sense that substances on the outer surface of the rubber dam may enter the oral cavity or that substances from the oral cavity may contaminate the tooth or teeth being treated. This occurs in particular during treatment of the rear molars. In this case, fastening down the rubber dam around the teeth to be isolated, for instance using metal clamps, may be a stubborn problem due to tooth forms that are hardly retentive. In such cases, the rubber dam must not be stretched across the holder so as to form a smooth, taut surface (cf. Winkler "Kofferdam in Theorie und Praxis", Quintessenz Verlags-GmbH 1991), but must rather hang loosely in the frame to some extent. Fulfilling this requirement, however, means the tension required for secure anchoring of the rubber dam to the pointed projections on the frame is lost, greatly increasing the risk of accidental slippage of the rubber dam from the holder.
The purpose of the invention is therefore to provide a frame-like rubber dam holder that is free of the above-described drawback of the current state of the art, thus in particular ensuring secure retention of the rubber dam in all dental treatment situations.